


the riddles that you speak

by hapakitsune



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Community: fandomaid, M/M, Talking Animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 17:33:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1396507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hapakitsune/pseuds/hapakitsune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shea has gossipy dogs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the riddles that you speak

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Send_Reinforcements](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Send_Reinforcements/gifts).



> Goofy as heck, unbetaed, and just some fun for C.

Since Roman walked into the dressing room of Nashville, Shea has had some time to adjust to the fact that he’s a bit of a weirdo. Roman willingly does things like dress up as Roger Federer and do videos for the Preds where he plays tennis with himself, and he blasts house music while he’s warming up, bouncing and humming along. A lot of the odd things Roman does Shea brushes off as cultural differences, and since none of them bother him, he doesn’t bring it up. 

And then he sees Roman talking to the stray dogs in Sochi. 

Shea is minding his own business, walking with Sid to grab lunch, when he spots Roman crouching on the side of the pathway next to a beautiful dog that looks a bit like a German Shepherd. Roman likes animals a lot, Shea knows. He has a horse in Switzerland and always likes playing with Dug and Rod when he comes over to Shea’s house. Dug seems to really like him, too, always licking Roman’s face and never leaving his side when he’s over. Shea is actually, weirdly, kind of jealous. 

Anyway, Sid says, “That’s Roman, right? Do you want to invite him to lunch?” 

Shea looks at Roman, who is staring very intently at the dog, and decides not to bother him. “He looks busy.”

“He’s just taking to a dog,” Sid says, brow creasing. 

“Roman is a dog whisperer,” Shea says, and he manages to make Sid believe it for almost five full minutes before Sid realizes he’s joking. 

Shea sees Roman around the Village a few more time during the Olympics, almost always crouched down next to one of the many dogs. Shea says hi when Roman actually sees him, but mostly he just lets Roman do his thing. He’s trying to focus on playing for Canada and winning gold again, the weight of the A heavy on his chest. 

 

When the season ends, Shea invites the boys over to his house for a cookout, as he always does. Not everyone comes – some have prior commitments, others just want to be alone – but Roman does, arriving with two bottles of wine and treats for the dogs. Shea lets him do as he please while he uncorks the wine, pours them each a glass and takes the bottles out to the patio where Mike and Carrie are bickering amiably over the grill. Seth is sitting on the edge of the pool with DZ, the two of them splashing each other with their feet. Shea pours Carrie some wine – she thanks him absently, waving her fingers as she taps Mike’s shoulder – and then goes to look for Roman again, since he still hasn’t made it outside. 

Roman is kneeling on the floor in the hall with Dug and Rod, nodding very seriously as they yip and bark. “Yes,” he says. “I see. Have you tried leading him to a nice girl in the park?”

Dug whines and paws at the floor. Roman sighs and scratches the back of his head. “I guess.” 

“Uh,” Shea says, and Roman whips around, nearly falling over. “Roman, are you talking to my dog?”

“No?” Roman says. Shea raises his eyebrows. Roman wilts. “Okay, yes. I am.”

“Do you mind explaining why?” 

“You won’t believe me,” Roman says. 

“Try.” Shea gives Roman a hand up. “Because right now I think you’re insane.”

“That’s what my parents thought when I was little.” Roman catches Shea’s look and shakes his head. “I can talk to animals.”

Shea digests this. “Do you mean you talk to animals or –?”

“Animals talk to me. Here, I’ll prove it.” Roman turns to look down at Dug and Rod. “Shea doesn’t believe I can talk to you. Tell me something I can tell him.”

Rod growls, then barks a few times. Dug interrupts him with a yelp, and the two start barking at each other, but it sounds more like bickering than aggression. It’s very surreal, to say the least. Roman has gone an interesting shade of pink and he doesn’t meet Shea’s eyes. 

“I shouldn’t use that as an example,” he says, half to Shea and half to the dogs. “That’s private, guys, you shouldn’t have told me that.”

“What did they tell you?” Shea asks, wondering how on earth this is his life. Gossippy dogs and a prudish defense partner. 

“You brought home someone a week ago. A man,” Roman says. “Dug says he was tall, but not as tall as you, and you kissed –”

“Okay,” Shea says hastily. He’s really going to have to be more careful around his dogs. “I believe you.”

“Sorry,” Roman says. “They were just telling me how lonely you are, too.”

“I’m not lonely,” Shea protests. “I’m fine.”

Roman smiles. “Of course you are,” he says. “Can I have some of that wine?”

 

Shea finds himself thinking about what Roman had said over the next few days as he’s getting ready to head up to Canada for the summer. He feels like his dogs are watching him constantly, and he keeps hearing Roman’s voice saying, _They were just telling me how lonely you are_.

“I’m not lonely,” he tells them when he fills their food bowl. Dug barks and noses at his wrist as if to say _Nice try._

Shea goes out to a bar, talks to some of the other patrons about baseball, and flirts half-heartedly with a curly-haired tourist from Michigan who is wearing a pair of newly bought cowboy boots and a smile. He seems disappointed that Shea doesn’t have an accent, but that doesn’t stop him from kissing Shea out in the alley behind the bar, in the shadow of the dumpster. It’s stupid and irresponsible – Nashville isn’t _that_ big – but all he hears is _how lonely you are._ Shea ultimately doesn’t take the tourist home. He doesn’t seem to take it hard, just kisses the side of Shea’s mouth and pats his chest before leaving.

Roman drops by unexpectedly the next day, under the thin pretense of having a mug of Shea’s, which makes no sense. Shea lets him in and tries really hard to ignore Roman talking to his dogs, now apparently entirely unafraid of doing so now that Shea knows the truth. He’s smiling at Rod, speaking quietly enough that Shea can’t hear, and he stays down there until Shea hands him a cup of coffee, not really sure what to offer him. 

“Oh! Thanks,” Roman says. He sips gingerly at the coffee, straightening to his feet. “So you’re getting ready to go to Canada?”

“Yeah.” Shea leans against the counter and watches his dogs nose at Roman’s feet. “You? Back to Switzerland?”

Roman smiles. Shea, watching closely for the first time in probably ages, notes that Roman is really quite beautiful. “For a bit, yes. Doing some traveling, I think.”

“Keep up the training,” Shea says. Roman nods and says he will. They sip their coffee together in silence, watching alternately each other and the dogs, now bored of them and investigating their food and water bowls. Shea starts to speak just as Roman opens his mouth, and they both laugh, apologizing over each other. Shea lifts his hand to tell Roman to go. 

“Are you – I mean.” Roman looks down at his coffee, swirling it around the mug. “Are you happy, Shea?”

It’s unusual for him to use Shea’s first name instead of Webs, and at first Shea fixates on that, the way Roman’s accent forms the vowels. Then he registers the actual words and blinks at him, startled. “What do you mean?”

“Your dogs are kind of gossipy,” Roman says apologetically. “They told me about – I guess it was Ryan? They said he was tall and you were close.”

Shea pauses with his cup halfway to his mouth. He hasn’t thought about Ryan in weeks, except in a hockey sense, hasn’t thought of him with anything like longing in more than a year. There are still traces of him around the house – mugs that he preferred, the blanket he always used when he got cold because he claimed Shea let the house get drafty – but they don’t hurt anymore. It may have taken time, but Shea has moved on. 

“Yeah, that was Ryan,” he says. 

Roman leans against the counter next to Shea and sets his mug down. “I didn’t know.”

“That was the idea.” Shea looks at his (nosy, gossipy) dogs. “We broke up a few months before he left for Minnesota.”

Roman doesn’t waste his time apologizing. “I see. And since then?”

“Since then I’ve been single.” Shea sees Roman’s pensive look and squeezes his shoulder. “Hey, don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.” 

“I hope not. I like having you as a partner.” Roman smiles up at him, half-reclining on Shea’s kitchen island. Shea realizes that he hasn’t dropped his hand from Roman’s shoulder and moves his hand down Roman’s arm. Roman blinks a few times, looking down at Shea’s hand and then back up. He starts to straighten up, smile turning into a smirk – and Dug barks loudly, startling both of them. 

Roman swears in German and says, “Dug!” His cheeks turn red as he steps back from Shea. 

“What did he say?” Shea asks, breathless and a little scared. His heart’s going like it’s a PK in the last five minutes of a tie game. “Roman?”

“It’s nothing,” Roman says. He throws back the rest of his coffee. “I should pack.”

“Roman –“ Shea protests, but Roman is setting down the mug and hurrying out, Shea’s turncoat dogs at his heels. 

 

Shea reflexively keeps tabs on Roman over the summer, watching the team email chain and Roman’s twitter. Roman, as usual, does a variety of odd Roman things like attending raves in Germany and riding horses in the mountains. Shea wonders if Roman is talking to the horses. What would horses talk about? Fields and how beautiful the sky is? 

The summer passes slow as honey, each lazy day stretching out in a haze of heat and training. Shea sees friends and his brother and dad, takes his dogs out, goes on a few dates. He takes flower to his mother’s headstone and sits on the grass beside it, telling her about Roman and his dogs. “I’m not lonely,” he tells her, tracing his fingers over the date. “I miss you. But I’m not lonely.”

She would have liked Roman, he thinks as he drives back home. She would have wanted to ask him about the birds in their yard. She probably would have tried to feed him a lot, too. 

He doesn’t know if it’s thinking about his mom or just the weight of lying constantly that he’s fine, but he calls Roman that night. Roman doesn’t pick up, of course, because it’s like three in the morning in Switzerland. He invites Shea to leave a message, first in German and then in English, and Shea breathes heavily down the line for a moment before gathering himself. 

“Hi Roman,” he says. “Wanted to see how you were doing. Looks like you’re having fun, I guess. If you – never mind.” He rubs at his face, staring at his knees. “I’ll see you back in Nashville.”

 

Shea comes back to Nashville early to do press and get his house ready for the season, and to get away from his family’s well-meaning attempts to pry into his life. He spends more time than he should in bars looking for easy dates, wearing cap low over his face on the off-chance he’s recognized, and strikes out for the most part. He knows well why; he’s thinking too much about Roman, with his clipped accent and bright smile. Shea should know better by now. Teammates are never a good idea. 

That doesn’t stop him from wanting Roman, of course, and trying to drown that desire in the embrace of someone who might look a little like him is a futile gesture at best. It isn’t Roman’s looks or voice that he wants (though they help). It’s everything else. 

Roman flies back from Switzerland a few days before training camp so he can get reacclimated to the time zone. Shea invites him and the other guys in town over for another dinner, more casual this time. Seth brings a pie that he, blushing, admits his mom made. Viktor brings a case of fancy microwbrew beer and sections off three for himself before letting anyone else have a go. Roman brings sausage that he claims he brought all the way back from Switzerland and laughs when Patrick tries a piece and makes a face. 

It’s nice, as it always is, just hanging around shooting the shit and playing video games, jostling against each other. Roman takes an armchair with the dogs on either side of him, occasionally bending over to talk to them quietly. No one seems to think this is odd, and Shea tries not to draw attention to it by watching, but he can’t help himself. Roman glances over at Shea, expression blank, and then looks away. 

Roman lingers after everyone else has left and produces a bar of chocolate from his jacket pocket. “I brought you a gift,” he says. “Special delivery from Switzerland.” 

He sets it down on Shea’s kitchen counter. Shea looks down at it and smiles. “Thanks. Do you want a piece?”

Roman shakes his head, so Shea unwraps a piece just for himself and pops it in his mouth. He’s about to thank Roman again when Roman places his hand on Shea’s chest, very deliberately. He looks up, that familiar half-smile in place and his eyelashes looking exceptionally long. “You keep telling people you’re not lonely, but you _seem_ lonely.”

“How?” Shea asks, garbled by the chocolate. 

“You don’t talk to people much.” Roman moves his hand down, curving his fingers so they draw lines down Shea’s chest. “You seem sad.”

Shea doesn’t move as Roman slides his hand under his shirt, spreading his fingers over Shea’s stomach. “Have my dogs been talking again?”

“They worry,” Roman says, moving in closer. “For years you had someone. Now you don’t.”

“Is that why you’re doing this?”

Roman shakes his head, smiling a little. “No.”

Shea leans down to kiss Roman, curving his hands over Roman’s hips. Roman licks the chocolate from Shea’s lips and laughs. Shea can’t stop smiling either, and they bump teeth before he decides enough is enough and turns so he’s bracketing Roman against the counter. Roman’s hand is fisted in his shirt when Shea bends back in to kiss him. He braces one hand on the cabinets beside Roman’s head, hardly daring to pull away for breath. Roman seems to feel the same, if his grip on Shea’s arm is anything to go by. 

Shea is getting his leg in between Roman’s thighs when he hears a sharp bark from his left and he springs back like he’s been shocked. Roman scows down at the offending parties, who have moseyed in from the living room and are sitting on their haunches watching them with a disturbing glint in their eyes. 

“Let us have our privacy, guys?” Shea says, squeezing Roman back in towards him. Dug yips. 

“He says we’re gross,” Roman says. “You wanted this,” he tells the dogs. “Now stay down here. We’ll go upstairs.”

“Will we?” Shea asks, looking down at Roman.

“If you want to,” Roman says. He reaches back, breaks off a piece of chocolate, and pops it in his mouth. He smiles. Shea can’t resist leaning in for another kiss. 

Rod barks this time, and Roman flaps his hand at them before pushing off the counter and dragging Shea out of the kitchen by the belt loops, far away from Shea’s nosy dogs. Shea makes sure to lock his bedroom door.


End file.
